community

Disintegration

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Ernest Walton was born in 1903 in Co. Waterford, graduated from TCD, and then worked in the Cavendish lab in Cambridge, England, and then at TCD. He and John Cockroft were together awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in physics for their 1932 work at Cavendish that split apart the nucleus (specifically, of a lithium atom), verifying Rutherford’s conjectures about the structure of atoms (WP). He died in Belfast in 1995.

His connection to Banbridge, which is where this FGB (ig) mural can be found on Bridge St, is that he attended kindergarten in the town (DIB).

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Tullycarnet Family Project

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Here is a gallery of images from the Blaze FX art in the (western) Tullycarnet subway, which promotes various community organisations, including TagIt (Fb), Tullycarnet flute band (Fb), Tullycarnet Community Football Club, Tullycarnet Family Project, Helping Hands Autism Support Group.

The cartoon cats from Top Cat are featured – the eponymous Top Cat is featured above. Fancy Fancy is just inside the mouth of the tunnel – see this 2013 image for a close-up.

For a later survey of community groups in the area, see Tullycarnet Together.

Just on the north side of the subway: Samhain.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Tullycarnet Together

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These four boards are on the side of the Hanwood Centre (web) in Kinross way, referencing various local social groups: Helping Hands [Autism Support], Cloud 9 [youth group], Barnardo’s NI (Fb), Links Women’s Project (Fb), TASC, TABC (Fb), TCFC (ig)

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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History Girl

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Memories from the History Girl mural in east Belfast’s Thistle Court. (Close-ups below.)

  • We used to go to Church Street East Disco … It was brilliant. Dee Street Disco in the Community Centre was good too.
  • Geary’s and The Tab sold all the electrical goods. The TV rent man came on a Friday. We sometimes didn’t answer the door!
  • I loved Nabney’s, Burkes and Nellie Stewarts. Dora Burnes was a good wee shop too.
  • There was a swimming pool in Victoria Park that opened in the summer. It was always freezing though!
  • I used to buy a bag of broken biscuits and and damaged fruit as a treat, when I went to the cinema.
  • We used to get our hair cut in Sammy Sanford’s.
  • The Road was always busy – shops and bars all the way along.
  • Barlow’s hardware at the Conswater Bridge used to have all the plates and cups outside in crates for you to buy.
  • I drank in the Con Club. It was great – they didn’t let women in!
  • I came from Singapore to live here with my husband. He died and I went home, but had to come back to Belfast. I missed it too much … it’s my home now.
  • My granny had a bathroom. I thought that was great. Our toilet was in the yard …
  • I worked in the Ropeworks and love it … the craic was great.
  • I loved Joe Bump’s chippy – the pasties were great.
  • If you were late for work at the Ropeworks they locked the door and you lost your pay. Hardly anyone was ever late.
  • My grandpa took me to the shipyard and swung me on a crane in one of the workshops. My mummy was raging when she found out!
  • We used to play Kick the Tin … there were sometimes 30 of us all playing together …
  • I loved the smell of Inglis’ Biscuit Factory along the Road.
  • The was The Vulcan, The Ulster Arms, The Four and Twenty, The Clock Bar and The Armagh House. Hastings, who own all the hotels now, used to own a good lot of the bars on the Road.
  • I remember seeing a ship being launched in the yard. It was about 1976 and all the ones from Mersey Street School went. I met my daddy in the crowd of thousands.
  • You got your good shoes in Irvine’s and your gutties in Warwick’s. It’s still there.
  • My granny kept her milk in a bucket of water because she had no fridge.
  • I worked in the shipyard – left school on a Friday and started in the Yard on Monday.
  • Everyone had a net bag made in the Ropeworks. You don’t see them nowadays.
  • We followed the Glens everywhere, but a home match in the Oval was always the best craic.
  • All my mummy’s brothers were in the Army or Navy during the War … they all came back.
  • I remember Stanley Brookes. They cashed your Providence Cheques.
  • We used to go to the cinema on a Saturday morning for the Kids Club. It was always bunged!!

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Out The Back Of Boots

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“Pro tanto quid retribuamus?” – What shall we give in return for so much? – is the motto of Belfast. These instances are in Castle Street and in Fountain Place, which is “out the back of Boots” – generations of Belfasters (since 1975 – Belfast Live) have used Boots to move between Donegall Place and the Fountain area (or fountains (plural) – see Fountain Street Spirits).

(See previously: Pro Tanto on a mural of HMS Belfast | Pro Tanto on Clifton St Orange Hall.)

Warp, weave, scutch and hackle are actions in the processing of flax fibre (Ulster Linen).

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To Markets New

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The Saturday market in Ballymena goes back to the 1600s but has had troubles recently finding a thriving home (Ballymena Guardian). The recent streetart by Friz (ig) and NRMN (ig) in Greenvale Street is intended to be a reference to the ancient market and is (probably) inspired by James Guthrie’s 1883 painting, ‘To Pastures New’, showing a girl herding geese in Lincolnshire.

Funded by the Department For Communities, Department For Agriculture, Environment, And Rural Affairs, and the Department For Infrastructure, with support from the Mid- & East-Antrim Borough Council.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Communities In Transition

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Here is a gallery of the flowers painted last summer (2023-06) in the New Lodge, with some details and some new additions (as compared with New Lodge Gardens), including a pair of hands by emic (ig).

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Up The Cregagh

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If you’re riding Shank’s mare, the combined length of the Cregagh and Woodstock roads is two miles; where they meet (opposite Ravenhill Avenue) you’ll find this new street-art by Zippy (ig) with support from Decowell Restoration (web), Bethany Fruit (web) and Astrl Fibres (ig), and funding from Belfast City Council).

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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A Tale Of Ireland

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“Alexander Fitzgerald Irvine was an Author, Minister and local resident [of “Antrim Town”] 1863-1941.” The family home where he was raised was in Pogue’s Entry, now a museum and site of the blue plaque, below, outside which sits the mural above (paid for by Lidl) (Antrim Guardian). (ITV video of the house from 1960 and 1963.)

Irvine worked in Belfast and Scotland before joining the Royal Marines. He moved to the United States in 1888, graduated from Yale and was ordained, took up various ministerial positions in the US, and became a social radical over time (Irish Biography). Irvine died in Hollywood, California; his collection of autographs and letters from 77 famous figures is held by the University Of California.

He is best known as an author and playwright. The book on top of the pile is the best-seller My Lady Of [The] Chimney Corner (pdf), an autobiographical book about “Irish peasant life” written in 1913 in tribute to his mother, who had not lived to see his military successes.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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